CHIPSTONE STYLE GUIDE
March 14, 2004
This guide is intended to elucidate the Chipstone Foundation’s preferences for its publications, and gives particular attention to the ways in which Chipstone usage differs from those given in the reference guides listed below.
The following books are used for primary reference:
Chicago Manual of Style (CMS), 15th edition, for overall style
Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th edition, for preferred spelling and meaning. Exceptions and compound words frequently used in Chipstone publications are listed at the end.
Webster’s New Biographical Dictionary, for preferred spelling of names; or, if you have access, www.groveart.com
Merriam-Webster Geographical Dictionary, for preferred spelling of places
Other useful texts are the classic Elements of Style by Strunk and White, and Words into Type, published by Prentice-Hall.
Use the serial comma, as in: “They acquired major works from Portsmouth, Boston, Newport, New York, and Philadelphia.”
Avoid explanation marks and other typography to emphasize a point.
Eliminate the comma after a short introductory phrase containing a date. For example, use “In 1852 potters James Taylor and Henry Speeler moved to Trenton” rather than “In 1852, potters. . . .”
Do not use the ellipsis symbol in Word because this character is not compatible with most layout programs. Instead, use periods separated by spaces.
Use a comma before the conjunctions “and,” “but,” “for,” and “or” to connect independent clauses. Usually a comma is not needed when the second clause lacks a verb.
In general, use the third person rather than the first person.
Avoid phrases and expressions such as “virtually,” “needless to say,” “clearly,” “so to speak,” and any others that do not add meaning to the sentence.
Avoid contractions.
When referring to chapters, use lowercase “c” and numerals, as in “The primary value of chapter 3 lies in the juxtaposition of excavated sherds with extant porcelain examples.”
In general, when dropping the proper name in subsequent references to companies, associations, societies, and so forth, use lowercase rather than initial caps. For example, subsequent references to the Dutch East India Company would be to “the company” rather than “the Company.”
If a foreign word or phrase appears in Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, it should be set in roman type rather than in italics. All others should be set in italics.
All diacritics should be marked on your manuscript and included in the accompanying file(s). If you are submitting hard copy only, insert a margin notation wherever special characters appear. If you are submitting a file and your software program does not allow for a particular accent, spell out the needed accent in angle brackets directly after the relevant letter, as below.
Čurčić C<hacek>urc<hacek>ic<acute>
Hôtel Ho<circumflex>tel
For capitalization of foreign titles, Chipstone publications conform to CMS 10.3: “Capitalize only the words that would be capitalized in normal prose—first word of title and subtitle and all proper nouns.” This is known as sentence style.
For punctuation of foreign titles, Chipstone publications conform to CMS 10.4: “When a foreign title is included in an English-language context, the following changes are permissible: a period . . . or semicolon between the title and subtitle may be changed to a colon, and guillemets [«»] may be changed to quotation marks. No other marks of punctuation should be tampered with. Commas should not be inserted or deleted.”
Avoid starting a sentence with a date or a number. If a sentence begins with a year or other number, the number should be written out: “Nineteen eighty-four” not “1984” and “One hundred percent” not “100%” or “100 percent.”
Eliminate the possessive for decades: 1850s, not 1850’s.
Avoid European dating: January 1, 2004, rather than 1 January 2004.
When month, day, and year are given, enclose the year in commas: “January 1, 2004, because January 1, 2004 would be incorrect.”
In general, spell out all numbers under 100. Exceptions are percentages, numbers that contain fractions, and certain foreign denominations. Follow CMS for those exceptions.
When writing out fractions, use “one” instead of “a”: “Eight and one half” or “three and one quarter.”
Inclusive numbers are separated by an en dash. Numbers should follow CMS format except year spans, which are to be written in full: 1845–1862, not 1845–62.
In text and references, spell out abbreviations (including ampersands): “Doughton and Watts Company” not “Doughton & Watts Co.”
In text, use “circa” rather than “ca.” and “figure” rather than “fig.” unless they are enclosed in parentheses. In captions, always use “fig.” and “ca.”
Acronyms may be used if they are spelled out at first mention.
Always give the full name, if known, on first mention.
Do not retain the comma before Jr. or Sr., or before Roman numerals (III, IV, etc).
When a name ends with an “s” (e.g., Teniers), the possessive form should be “’s” (Teniers’s).
The word “collection” should be lowercase except when part of a credit line in a caption and/or photo credit.
In general, quotations that are 50 words or longer should be set as an extract/block quote: indented and without quotation marks. All quotations should be exact, including original spelling. Use [sic] sparingly, and only when confusion might result without it.
When words are dropped from a sentence within a quote, ellipses are indicated by three dots with a space on either side of every dot. Use four dots when the first represents a period.
Inscriptions should be placed within quote marks, not italicized. Do not use small caps.
Do not start a quote or a block quote with ellipses.
All direct quotations should be documented.
Acknowledgments should be brief and in alphabetical order by last name.
Names of exhibitions should be placed within quote marks. Exhibition catalog titles, however, should be set in italics.
References to exhibition catalogs should contain the full exhibition information, including venue and dates, if available.
Use endnotes rather than footnotes.
Use humanities style documentation. All direct quotations should be documented. American Furniture style is to group all references into a single note at the end of a paragraph, rather than the more traditional style of placing citations at the point of text reference. Ceramics in America follows traditional scholarly style, although notes should be combined wherever possible and there should be no more than one note in a sentence.
Do not use “op. cit.” Instead, use the appropriate shortened form of the original citation.
Use “p.” and “pp.” when giving page numbers unless they are part of a volume citation (see example 3 below) or a journal/periodical citation.
Typical note entries follow. Chipstone differs from CMS in some particulars.
Order of information: author(s), title of work, volume or edition if applicable, place of publication (including state or country abbreviated if city is not well known), publisher, date, page number(s), and/or figure number(s).
Facts of publication are enclosed in parentheses. Editors of books generally follow the title on first citation, and the words “editor,” “translator,” or “compiler” are written out. Note punctuation and abbreviations in the examples below.
Example 1: John T. Kirk, American Furniture and the British Tradition to 1830 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982), figs. 1142–46.
Example 2: Nancy E. Richards and Nancy Goyne Evans, New England Furniture at Winterthur: Queen Anne and Chippendale Periods (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England for the Winterthur Museum, 1997), pp. 31–36, nos. 17–19.
Example 3: Probate Records of Essex County, Massachusetts, 1635–1681, edited by George Francis Dow, 3 vols. (Salem, Mass: Essex Institute, 1916–1920), 1: 143, 144, 2: 247–50, respectively.
Example 4: Simeon Shaw, History of the Staffordshire Potteries (1829; reprint, New York: Praeger Publishers, 1970), pp. 211–15.
Exhibition catalogs and auction sale catalogs should be identified as such, with venues and dates included. See examples below.
Example 1: Michael K. Brown, The Wilson Potters: An African-American Enterprise in 19th- Century Texas, exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, November 3, 2002–March 3, 2003 (Houston: Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens, Museum of Fine Arts, 2002).
Example 2: Important Americana, sale no. 6957 (New York: Sotheby Parke-Bernet, January 17 and 19, 1997), lot 916.
Order of information: author, title in quotes, title of periodical in italics, volume (use Arabic numbers for volume numbers, not “vol.”), number (use no.), month (or season) and date in parentheses followed by a colon, page number(s) without “p.” or “pp.”
Example: Patricia E. Kane, “Furniture Owned by the Massachusetts Historical Society,” Antiques 119, no. 4 (May 1981): 1130–45.
Use Antiques rather than The Magazine Antiques.
Months are spelled out: (February 1970).
Seasons are in lowercase and, where applicable, separated by a slash: (summer/fall).
Order of information: author, title in quotes, title of journal, editor, facts of publication in parentheses, page numbers with “p.” and “pp.”
Example: Martha H. Willoughby, “Patronage in Early Salem: The Symonds Shops and Their Customers,” in American Furniture, edited by Luke Beckerdite (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England for the Chipstone Foundation, 2000), pp. 169–84.
Note: Some journals do not capitalize titles of articles after the first word. However, citations to those articles should conform titles to standard capitalization rules.
The article “The” at the beginning of newspaper titles is dropped, and dates are set off by commas rather than placed within parentheses. If the city is not evident in the title, it can be added in parentheses.
Example 1: Virginia Gazette and Alexandria Advertiser, November 1, 1792.
Example 2: Rockland County (New York) Dispatch, December 16, 1992.
Titles of unpublished articles, manuscripts, and reports are enclosed in quotes, not italicized. The sponsoring organization or institution and the date are given in parentheses:
Example 1: Matthew C. Emerson, “Decorated Clay Pipes from the Chesapeake” (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1988).
Example 2: Matthew C. Emerson, “Decorated Clay Pipes from the Chesapeake” (master’s thesis, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1988).
Order of information: author’s last name, shortened title, page number. “Ibid.” may be used if referring to the previously cited publication or work.
Kirk, American Furniture and the British Tradition, p. 30.
Ibid., pp. 50–52.
Richards and Evans, New England Furniture at Winterthur, p. 37.
Dow, ed., Probate Records of Essex County, 1: 145.
Shaw, History of the Staffordshire Potteries, p. 212.
Kane, “Furniture Owned by the Massachusetts Historical Society,” p. 1135.
Willoughby, “Patronage in Early Salem,” p. 170.
Inclusive numbers such as dates and page numbers are separated by an en dash rather than a hyphen.
Electronic addresses, websites, and e-mail are enclosed within single angle brackets < > followed by a period: “For further information, visit <www.chipstone.org>.”
In most articles, each figure number will have a corresponding callout in the text. Authors should indicate the approximate placement of images in the manuscript.
Order of information: name of artist, name of object or title of painting, place of origin, date made (using “ca.” not “circa”), material or medium, dimensions, ending with a period. Credit line and photographer, if known, follow in parentheses, with period inside the closing parenthesis.
“Courtesy” is not used with Chipstone Foundation citations.
If additional comments about the figure are included, they should be placed following the credit line and in complete sentence form.
When institutions are cited in credit lines, the article is usually dropped: New-York Historical Society, not The New-York Historical Society; Chipstone Foundation, not The Chipstone Foundation.
Do not use fraction symbols in dimensions, because those characters are often dropped when imported for layout. Use number slash number instead: 1/2 not ½
Figure 1 Side chair, Boston or Ipswich, Massachusetts, 1715–1725. Maple. H. 42 1/2", W. 18 1/2", D. 15". (Courtesy, Ipswich Historical Society; photo, Gavin Ashworth.)
Figure 2 Detail of the right front foot of chair illustrated in fig. 27.
Figure 3 High chest of drawers, Colchester, Connecticut, ca. 1785. Cherry with white pine. H. 82 1/2", W. 41 3/4", D. 21 1/2". (Chipstone Foundation; photo, Sumpter Priddy III.)
Figure 4 Jonathan Fairbanks after Charles Willson Peale, The Edward Lloyd Family, 1959. Oil on canvas. 43 3/4" x 52". (Photo, Gavin Ashworth.)
Figure 5 Mug, attributed to Samuel Bell, Staffordshire (Newcastle-under-Lyme), ca. 1740. Lead-glazed agateware. H. 4 1/2". (Courtesy, Troy D. Chappell Collection; photos by Gavin Ashworth unless otherwise noted.)
Figure 6 Bird, Staffordshire, ca. 1755. Salt-glazed agateware. H. 5 1/4 ". (Chipstone Foundation.) Only two colors of clay were used for this laid agate body. On other figures, particularly a group of press-molded cats, cobalt is often added.
Figure 7 Gravemarker, Perth Amboy, New Jersey, 1918. Terracotta. H. 75". The John and Mary Halbert marker is a good example of mass-produced terracotta gravemarkers with faux granite finish.
Figure 8 Detail of the gravemarker illustrated in fig. 7. This close up of the Halbert marker shows the terracotta body underneath the granite-like glaze.
Figure 9 Étienne-Maurice Falconet, Trump, Chelsea, 1745–1750. Soft-paste
porcelain. L. 11 1/2". (Courtesy, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.)
Use American rather than British spelling. Listed below are preferred spellings of terms that do not necessarily conform to Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary.
archaeology
agateware
blockfront (American Furniture)
candlestand
catalogue (American Furniture)
catalog (Ceramics in America)
chest-on-chest
desk-and-bookcase
dustboard
fall-front
firescreen
hollow ware
lead-glazed
quarter-columns
quarter-round
Rockingham ware
salt-glazed
scratch-stock
secretary-and-bookcase
sherd
T’ang
terracotta
wash basin (but use washstand)
yellow ware